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Interface | Fortune

Interface Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

He made history as the first human to receive Neuralink’s brain–computer interface. Paralyzed from the shoulders down since a 2016 accident, he can now play chess, text friends, and control a computer using only his thoughts. In his first major in-depth conversation, Noland Arbaugh shares—and shows—his extraordinary journey from life-changing surgery to becoming a pioneer of neurotechnology. What does it mean to live as the prototype of a new human machine future, and what comes next for accessibility, independence, and human potential?

Noland Arbaugh
First Human Neuralink BCI Recipient, Neurotech Pioneer 

Jessica Mathews
Senior Writer, Fortune

Mind over Matter

Conferences

Lawmakers around the globe are racing to pass legislation to protect children from online harms—from social manipulation and addictive interfaces to weak data privacy and even adult abusers. Big Tech business models have enabled the trend; AI has accelerated it. What are we learning about the adverse health effects of digital hazards on underage users, and what must be done beyond today’s policy initiatives? The CEO of a consumer security startup and his politically engaged star investor—both parents—discuss.

Jeffrey Katzenberg
Founding Partner, WndrCo

Hari Ravichandran
Founder and CEO, Aura 

Andrew Nusca
Editorial Director, Fortune Brainstorm

Who Will Protect The Connected?

Brainstorm Finance 2019: A Conversation With a Young Cryptocurrency Engineer 

Finance

Seventeen-year-old Ananya Chadha discusses  how she is using blockchain and her very own cryptocurrency to help people share their genetics anonymously. 

this interview might be subtitled A star is born. Uh, I was chosen, I guess, to do this interview because of my advanced age. And I guess my air of dignity, which you all know I don't really have, uh and anyway, But in reading about an on my first reaction was Is this person for real? As indeed she is better than for real, because when I watched her YouTube videos, I've never seen anyone who communicates better with less jargon. Makes things clearer, explains the most arcane technical issues and language that everybody can understand. So anyway, you're a pioneer. Also in the art of community are art and the art of communications. Um, and and I wanted to I know you have an unusual background, uh, born in Madagascar. Grew up in, uh, in Toronto. Um, when did you you know, you've hardly had a typical high school experience. And can you go into when you realize that whatever. 14. That your mission really was. Maybe not being in the drama society or being accumulator of being on the soccer team. It was pursuing big ideas. You had a real mission in life, right? Um, it definitely started very early. I I guess I've always had, like, a naive, arrogant to think that, like, I could do anything, Um, and it almost believing that it's definitely come true. When I was 14, I joined this program called the Knowledge Society, which is like a human accelerator, and it totally changed my life. I got exposed to a whole bunch of different excellent technologies tools. I realized that conferences are saying Uh huh. I just began to realize that young people have so much like potential and power. And if we if we believe we can do anything we legitimately actually can, right? And one of the early coups that you had was winning. I love this. This name the crypto Chicks hackathon, which involved applying genomics to the Blockchain, right? Yeah. So I started off doing gene editing research. I spent two years in a gene editing lab, um, working on the team that cured muscular dystrophy and most models another in clinical trials. But while I was there, I noticed that genetic data is so important. Everything relies on data. You have to know where to make your cut, how to program your CRISPR cast and I realized that there isn't a lot of good data, so I want to learn more about Blockchain. Went to a lot of meetings in Toronto, built a platform to allow people to anonymously upload genetic information to research data sets. And even though it was anonymous, they could still get paid for their contributions, ended up winning the hacks on, ended up working on it a bit more. It got moved into consensus where I worked at it after and yeah, that was definitely a moment where I was, like, weird In this world, it's crazy. I'm so lucky I can do anything right? So does that have implications for the pharmaceutical industry for new drug development? What are the implications, right? I guess it really showed me that Blockchain is so powerful for things that most people like forget about. And I think one of the biggest use cases of Blockchain will definitely be for things that couldn't have existed before. But now we can use by using the properties of Blockchain in the back end, for example, um like people think that in our near future it's very likely that we're going to spend a lot of our time in virtual reality, and it might seem far fetched. But if you have really good VR like with really nice haptic feedback, you get to live in a world where you don't have to pay expensive costs for housing. You don't have to pay expensive costs for education because you can like one Harvard profit and teach a billion people. You don't have to pay for transportation. So if we spend our time living in virtual worlds, for example, um, and we, like, spend all our real money buying a virtual world house and the gamemaker tomorrow, just delete your house. That would suck, but with something like block pain, where you can establish trust. Now everyone knows that you have your house over there and I'm getting excited. But it's like even in the real world, if we have things like digital identity. For example, if you're a refugee and you lose your papers, you don't exist. If someone else has control of your passport of your ID and they go into a bank, they create a bank account. They are you. And there are so many ways where Blockchain can also add value in terms of If I want to establish that I am myself, maybe it's like biometrics. For example, it tracks my brain waves. When I do a certain action, my e g signals my fingerprint. A combination of different things could allow the Blockchain to know that I am me. I own these stocks and I own this house and I have this passport and everyone knows that this is me or like there are so many but, um, like, using it for data attribution So, like there's a couple of access Copyright, which is the leading copyright organization in Canada, is looking into how we can attribute paintings and books to their rightful owners. So when they're used or when data is used, the rightful owner gets paid. And I guess overall, um, Blockchain adds value in a lot of really interesting places. And so, if I were to give you a $100 bill and I'm like, take this $100 bill and you're like, yeah, I'll take it and then you would take it because it gave you value. And if something can give you value and if you can create it, so if it's possible to create value. If it exists and it creates value, people will use it. And I'm almost entirely certain that Blockchain id value and it's possible so people will definitely use it, right? So your view also is the trust deficit in Blockchain, right? And that's the real issue, not the technology I know that you created to cryptocurrencies you went through a lot of steps. By the way, if you get to see this on YouTube the whole experience, that and then you went through creating what was impeached and profit. These two Cryptocurrency is one of the best educations I've ever read about the mechanics of creating a Cryptocurrency and the barriers involved. But you feel it's not. The technology is to trust so and you also say that the technology is going to advance much faster than people expect We've already seen. Libera right is at an inflection point. Where do we go from here? I think it was really cool before people used to have Bitcoin and you would speculate on it. You would try and make 500% by buying Bitcoin, and now you have something like liberal where you actually know the value of it so it's not going to be used for I want to make 500% off of Crypto Rather, you're going to use it for a lot of where, where Blockchain where crypto makes sense. So another thing I think is really important is the team behind. Labour is crazy, Uh, and if you look at the teams behind a Serie um, they definitely didn't have as much scale or network or reach as the people who are creating liberal. So it's definitely a completely new thing in terms of trust, ability to get it to a whole bunch of people. I think it's definitely it will be a lot more well accepted and play a big role. I know that since it makes a lot of sense since they'll be trusted, it's definitely going to happen. Well, maybe it won't be implemented because of regulation, but I know that in the future we're going to be crazy things. I guess what I'm saying is people were freaking out when Bitcoin came out, but then they kind of subdued themselves. They're like, Oh, we don't really have to worry about it. Then Ethereum came out and you're like, Okay, maybe We have to start thinking about regulation because there's two things. Then, um, Lever comes out after fun. But I was like, Oh my God, we have to start like worrying like crazy, like creating regulations that can take over the world. But we need to think about what's next, not about what's already been created. When I was in, like, the discussion room this morning and everyone was talking about regulation for what exists right now, that's wrong. You have to think about regulation for what will come in the next two years or three years, or it's already too late. Facebook reached a billion users, and like the shortest amount of time, things grow exponentially. And because things grow so fast and it's so hard to conceive of it, it's super important that we try and predict where the technology will go and we try and adapt our systems for where we think it will be, rather than for where it is right now, right? So you think that technology will just the speed of technological change will overwhelm any ability to regulate it or not, Or do you think the regulators can block or slow the progress in Bitcoin usage or Cryptocurrency usage. If you grasp most technology things like the cost of sequencing a genome or the number of people who have access to the Internet or the improvement in brain computer interface technology or machine learning capabilities, it's all been on an exponential curve and humans think linearly. We are programmed to think linearly so we can't even conceive of what exponential means. And because of that, I think it's super important to recognize that it moves fast. Incentives are misaligned. The U. S government is an incentivized to recognize another currency that's competing with the U. S dollar. Um, and but consumers are like they take whatever brings value and because things are misaligned, it's super important that we're cognizant about that in order to move forward, right? You're also dealing a lot with brain computer interfaces. Um, you are able to control cars with brainwaves. With toy cars, you're able to control prosthetics just briefly. What's what does the future hold there? It's crazy. Ray Kurzweil, who used to be the head of engineering at Google, thinks that we might solve brain ships by the 2030. And if you look at the research studies that have been done in mouse models. They've been able to get a blind mouse through the maze with a brain chip by, like giving it like downloading a virtual map or GPS almost. Or they were able to have brain to brain primitive brain to brain communication and mice. And also in humans. They played a game with like two. The technology is absolutely insane for brain computer interfaces, and it will totally change the way we live brain to brain communication. Maybe instead of me talking to you guys today, you would just already know or brain to Internet communication. It could be like me talking to Siri. Or it could be like something we can't even conceive of. There are so many tools that will totally change humanity. Bring Peter interfaces, genetics blocked a nanotech virtual reality, nuclear fusion, alternative energy, quantum computing. And I think it's so important that we're all at least aware of the different tools that we have available to us to solve problems, and also the questions that we need to ask when technology grows exponentially because there are so many questions like what if your brain could be happy Or do we want to spend our entire life in VR? Some people be like, Yeah, I'd have a blast. Some people like I value real life. I guess my last stop formula is I challenge you all today for, like, the next five days to try and learn something new about a new industry that you never would have thought to look into because I think the only way we're going to have the best possible future for humanity when dealing with Blockchain when dealing with finance and when dealing with all the other tools that will change our systems and our civilization for the future, as if we're all aware. Or at least you guys are all aware of the different things that will play a role. So definitely Google those things. I think it'll be super important. Thank you. I'm not going over there for questions. I selfishly took all this time to ourselves. Thank you very much. Thank you. And on you

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